type: timeline_event
Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael told CNBC on March 13, 2026, that there was "no chance" the Department of Defense would resume negotiations with Anthropic, ten days after the company was placed on a supply chain risk designation that barred it from all federal contracts. Michael accused Anthropic of "leaking and bad faith" throughout the negotiation process, characterizing the company's public disclosures about the dispute as a deliberate strategy to generate sympathetic media coverage.
Michael's comments represented the most combative public posture any Pentagon official had taken since the March 3 blacklisting. He argued that Anthropic had been given every opportunity to reach an accommodation on military AI use cases and had chosen instead to impose unacceptable conditions on the Department of Defense's ability to deploy Claude in operational settings. The remarks signaled that the administration viewed the dispute not as a contract disagreement but as a loyalty test for the broader AI industry.
The interview drew immediate pushback from legal observers who noted that the supply chain risk designation — originally designed to address foreign adversary threats from companies like Huawei and Kaspersky — was being wielded as a punitive tool against a domestic company. Breaking Defense reported that defense industry executives were watching the situation closely, concerned that any AI company that pushed back on Pentagon requirements could face similar treatment. Anthropic declined to comment directly on Michael's remarks, saying it would address the matter in its upcoming court filings.